When Dave and Louise
purchased their property in 1993, it had been farmed in row crops and was five
acres of bare ground. They immediately planted a four-acre lychee grove,
and slowly began to landscape one acre which would surround their house when it
was built. Their focus in landscape design gradually became one of
planting an informal arboretum that would include a wide variety of native
trees and shrubs and eventually become a diverse natural woodland attractive to
wildlife. They included species that are native not just to the property
itself (which was historically in the headwaters of Taylor Slough), but to Florida’s climatic zone 10 in general (and a few from zones 9 and 11).

After the house was
built in 1998, a pond was dug, lined, and stocked with native plants and
fish—frogs, dragonflies, and a turtle soon appeared on their own. In
2007, they built a boardwalk trail elevated ten feet above the ground that runs
75 feet through one of the yard’s wooded areas before ending in an observation
deck looking over the pond. The yard is still very much a work in
progress, and there are young plantings as well as grown hammocks. The
largest reported Fiddlewood in the United States is here, and several other
species have been nominated to the National Register of Big Trees. Today
there are more than 150 species of native plants including 100 trees and shrubs, ten orchids
and bromeliads, and a dozen aquatic plants, and more than 100 species of birds, 30
species of butterflies…and eight species of snakes have been seen.

Dave recently retired from his
ranger career with the National Park Service (25 years of it in South Florida). Louise gave up her career with the park service to raise their
family, manage their lychee grove, work on the board of an association of
tropical fruit growers, and take occasional temporary research jobs at Everglades National Park.

If
you don't have internet access, you may call Patty Phares, 305-255-6404. The
walking will be easy but out in the sun, so bring sun protection and water.
Close-focus binoculars will be handy for butterflying.

Everyone
loves to see Pine Ridge Sanctuary, an award-winning, privately-owned pine rockland restoration in the Redland. It is also the home of Terry and Barbara Glancy and
Pine Ridge Orchids. The Glancys acquired the property in 1976 and restored the
degraded pineland. Pine Ridge Sanctuary has been awarded Miami-Dade's Natural
Forest Community classification, is designated an Environmentally Endangered
Land (EEL) site, is a registered property with the Nature Conservancy, and
received the Florida Native Plant Society's Overall State Landscape Enhancement
Award. Terry and Barbara Glancy have been named Forest Stewardship Landowners
of 1997 and received the 2012 Florida Land Stewards of the Year award. The
pineland had a prescribed burn late last year, so it is in prime condition for
seeing wildflowers and butterflies.

DADE CHAPTER and FNPS NEWS

Chapter workdays, Everglades National Park: July 21 and August 11, 9am -noon. Help the chapter enhance the entrance to
a national park! We'll do weeding and pruning, reinstall plant signs, possibly
some planting. As usual, a jug of cold water will be provided, bring snacks to
share if you care to. Gloves, hand tools and bug spray are available but you may
prefer to use your own. Mosquitoes might be out, so bring a head net if you
have one (we have a few in the supplies). New helpers are welcome and
encouraged to come. Everyone in your car gets into ENP free after the workday.
Contact Patty 305-255-6404, pphares@mindspring.com if you have questions
(305-878-5705 cell, for the morning of the workday only).

Welcome New Member. Catherine Raymond. Thanks to
all who have renewed or rejoined recently!

Check out the updated FNPS
website! On June 1, 201 2, FNPS released its new website. Let us invite you to explore and
contribute. Many things are new, but the URL is still www.fnps.org.

A focus on telling the world
who we are, what our mission is, and how we accomplish it

Plenty of modern touches such
as slide shows -- you'll see one on our home page

Useful tools and information --
check out the "resources" tab to find lots of information on native
plants, native plant communities, and where to go to learn about them. I
am particularly pleased with the plant pages which provide colorful photographs
and tons of information about natives that are used in landscaping
projects...."plants for your area" along with a tool for matching up
your site conditions and landscaping goals with the plants.

Connections to social media
(you'll find the latest blog post on our home page)

Tools for society and chapter
leadership (login required, but find in menus near the bottom).

Information on how to
participate -- check out the "participate' tab

We also
have vastly upgraded support for chapters that don't have their own web
sites. We've made "mini websites" for them.

We hope
you take the time to explore, to enjoy the site, and to contribute to its
future growth. If you'd like to make any comments or to volunteer, send
an email to webteam@fnps.org.

Introducing one of our new Board Members, Kurt Birchenough, (we’ll introduce our other new board member, Surey Rios in the next
Tillandsia):

Kurt Birchenough grew up on a dairy farm in the small town
of Turin in northern New York and spent his youth playing in pastures,
exploring the woods on the farm, and fishing in the many lakes in the area.
This exposure to the outdoors fostered a love of exploration and led to his
completion of a BA in Biology, Specialized in Ecology and Conservation Biology
at Boston University. Two semesters studying abroad in Ecuador, two years living in Hawaii, and three years in the Peace Corps in Mexico has further pushed his passion for travel and exploration. Observing first-hand the stark
contrast between the pristine rainforests of the Tiputini Biodiversity Station
in the Yasuni Park in the Amazon and the highly impacted forests of Hawaii developed in him a desire to protect native ecosystems and native plants. Kurt
arrived to Miami to begin his work towards his MS in Environmental Studies at
FIU in conjunction with the Peace Corps and their Master’s International
Program in 2006. While in Miami, Kurt has had the opportunity to volunteer in
many native plant outplantings, volunteer in the rainforest and seed bank lab
of Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens, and lead many field trips to the
native ecosystems of south Florida as a teaching assistant for the Ecology of
South Florida lab class at FIU.

Aside from his passion for native ecosystems, Kurt is an
avid lover of bicycling-and-not-owning-a-car, the Boston Red Sox, hiking, craft
beers, and guerilla gardening. Usually not all at the same time.

OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS

Dade Native Plant Workshop,Tue July 17 and Aug 21
at 7 pm: MDC Kendall campus Landscape Technology Center. July's topic is the Poison ivy
family (Anacardiaceae). Please bring in at least 3 plants, which needn't
necessarily cover the topic. See http://nativeplantworkshop.ning.com.
For more info, contact Steve at steve@pronative.com or 786-488-3101.

North American Butterfly Association - Miami Blue Chapter. NABA extends a special invitation to FNPS members to come to NABA
meetings. Butterflies (and moths) and native plants need each other -- so do
their people. See complete details at www.miamiblue.org.

July 29, 2 pm. "Meet Our Moths". The Miami
Blue Chapter and Broward Chapter celebrate Moth Week. Long Key Natural Area
and Nature Center, 3501 Southwest 130th Avenue, Davie, FL 33330 (954-357-8797). The program by Dr. Michelle DaCosta of Florida Department of Agriculture
and Consumer Relations features tiger moths, some colorful day-flying
moths and how they go about their lives, and "moth plants" for your garden. Earlier in Moth Week, Dr. DaCosta will set up sheets and
lights at Long Key to show the moth fauna of the nature center.

August 12: 1-3 pm: Quarterly meeting at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Visitor Center's second floor ballroom. Martin Feather,
Exhibits Manager, and Amy Padolf, Director of Education, present the
behind-the-scenes of the butterfly conservatory -- how butterfly houses
function, their niche in conservation and education, their relationship with
the international communities that provide the species. Sundays at FTBG are
FREE in August! As usual, come early to enjoy the butterfly garden and
great refreshments.

NATIVE PLANTS AND MOTHS…There's more than birds,
bees and butterflies

We celebrate the first-ever National Moth Week, July 23-29, 2012, (http://nationalmothweek.org) with a
collection of short articles on native plants and moths written by several Dade
Chapter FNPS members. Learn more about the native plants featured below at www.regionalconservation.org > Natives for Your
Neighborhood.

To learn more about moths, the North American Butterfly
Association (NABA)-Miami Blue Chapter and Broward Chapter invite everyone to a
special Moth Week event:

July 29, 2 p.m.. "Meet Our Moths". Long
Key Natural Area and Nature Center, 3501 Southwest 130th Avenue, Davie, FL 33330; 954-357-8797. Come to this program celebrating our day-flying and night-flying
moths as well as "moth plants" for your garden. See complete details
at www.miamiblue.org.

Do you have a moth garden you didn’t know about?by Elane Nuehring

Information on butterfly gardening abounds. We have
extensive lists of butterfly caterpillar food plants, nectar plants, and even
the larger shrubs and trees preferred for sheltering. Meanwhile, moths go
about their business, largely without our awareness. Like butterfly devotees,
moth fanciers usually start with a few of the big, showy ones – leaving the
“little brown jobs” for later. That’s my excuse to start with the Black
Witch (Ascalapha odorata), the largest lepidopteran, perhaps the
largest insect, north of Mexico, with a wing-span up to 7 inches (for
comparison, the Giant Swallowtail’s wing-span is 5 inches).

Sennae and Pithecellobia are host and nectar
plants for several familiar Sulphur and Blue butterflies…but also, the Black
Witch in our area lays eggs on Cat’s Claw (Pithecellobium
unguis-cati) and various non-native Sennae, such as Senna alata (Candlebush).

Like the Monarch, the Black Witch is stationary in South Florida, but migratory elsewhere. It prowls by night and rests in crevices during the
day, and if disturbed, will fly up, bat-like, and disappear. A hike through the
hammocks of North Key Largo is very likely to produce at least one Black Witch,
but I have had them in my yard as well – where there is Cat’s Claw and native
Sennae species, and crevices and moist, shady areas. I have never seen one
feeding at night, but I understand they come to rotting fruit…something to try!

What’s the deal with the fiddlewood
leafroller?

by Jennifer Possley

If you have fiddlewoods (Citharexylum spinosum) in your yard, chances are you have had fiddlewood leafrollers (Epicorsia
oedipodalis), too.

Fiddlewood (Citharexylum spinosum).

Photo
by Roger Hammer.

The larvae of this moth hatch en masse and can quickly
devour young leaves, skeletonize older leaves, or roll them into a tube sealed
with a protective “tent” of silk. Discovering fiddlewood leafrollers in your
trees might be initially alarming, but fight the urge to spray insecticide or
pull off the larvae. Your fiddlewoods will look chewed up for a few weeks,
but, as FNPS president Steve Woodmansee states, “tent caterpillars are an
important food source for birds, especially those rearing young. In addition,
no need to prune your tree. So I like 'em.” One way to reduce the visual
impact of fiddlewood leafrollers in your yard is to simply not cluster more
than one fiddlewood together.

The adult moths are less interesting; they are
yellowish-tan, with a wingspan just under 4 cm. According to one of my
favorite websites, www.bugguide.net,
this species’ range includes the Greater Antilles and South Florida, and it
also can host on lancewood (Nectandra coriacea). See the adult at http://bugguide.net/node/view/607400.

Firebush and the Pluto Sphinx

by Roger Hammer

Back when I was gainfully employed as the manager of Castellow Hammock Park, with a phone available to the general public, each year I’d get two
or three phone calls with reports of small hummingbirds visiting the flowers of firebush (Hamelia patens).

Firebush (Hamelia patens).

Photo by
Shirley Denton.

And then I’d have to explain to the homeowner that
they were pluto sphinx moths, not hummingbirds. Admittedly, they do hover in
front of flowers like hummingbirds, but they mostly feed at dusk, or after
dark, when hummingbirds are settled in for the night. The pluto sphinx moth (Xylophanes
pluto)is mostly green, with a pointed abdomen and gold patches
at the base of the hindwings.

When resting, their wings are swept back at an angle.
Not only do the adult moths nectar on the flowers of firebush, the larvae feed
on the leaves, so if you see large 2-toned brown larvae (with a pair of fake
eye spots toward the head) feeding on the leaves of your firebush, leave them
alone and they’ll turn into beautiful pluto sphinx moths.

Biting the hand that feeds you?

by Suzanne Koptur

The beautiful flowers of the rough-leaved velvetseed, Guettarda
scabra, open mostly in the late afternoon, sometimes pried open by eager
flower flies, but really ready for action once night falls. The flowers are
white or pale pink in color, with long tubes that contain nectar, and they are
very fragrant (to some, the nicest scent of any flower in the pine
rocklands!). Rough-leaved velvetseed flowers are visited by an array of hawkmoths,
including Peregonia lusca (Half-blind sphinx).

These moths also lay their eggs on the new leaves of
velvetseed, and the caterpillars munch the leaves at night, hiding along the
leaf midribs during the day, where their little tails are all that gives them
away. Whenever I see munching on velvetseeds I look for hawkmoth caterpillars,
though sometimes the leaves have been devoured by echo moth caterpillars (those
guys are known to eat a wide variety of plants). Actually, the caterpillars of Peregonia lusca are also found eating Krug’s holly (Ilex krugiana) in Everglades National Park. Hawkmoths are more specialized than many moths,
but this hawkmoth utilizes hostplants in at least two different plant families
throughout its range (from Florida and Texas down through Central and South America).

The Beautiful Bella Moth

by Steve Woodmansee

Have you ever walked through a pineland, or the back dunes
of the beach, and seen flashes of pink flittering about? Chances are that you
happened upon the sweet little Bella moth.

About an inch long, this showy, pink moth is also known as
the Rattlebox moth, since its host plant are members of the Rattlebox plant
genus Crotalaria, of which two species are native to Florida, the Dwarf
or Low Rattlebox (C. pumila), and the lovely diminutive Rabbitbells (C.
rotundifolia). Both can be quite common in mesic to dry pinelands as well
as coastal strand habitats throughout the Florida peninsula. This moth is
special in that it is diurnal, and active during the day, like most members of
the Tigermoth Family, to which it belongs. Caterpillars are black and orange
striped, with long stingless awns projecting from the body.

HOME FOR SALE:9720 sw
162 st. 3/2 home with a two car garage and ¼
acre yard with 30 years worth of mostly Native Plant landscaping. The house and
yard are shaded by spreading Willow Bustics, Gumbo Limbos, Lysilomas, Satin
Leafs, an oak and a large Lignum Vitae. The back yard is screened by large
native shrubs, attracting many butterflies and birds. There is also an orchid
house with a sprinkler system. Palmetto Middle and Senior High schools. $159,900.
Contact: Anthony Askowitz at Re/Max: 305-251-2127, Ext. 117.

HOME FOR SALE: ZEN SANCTUARY There are only a handful
of homes in the Redlands of Southeast Florida situated in a natural forest.
Here is your opportunity to acquire a rarely available property. 5
acres with main house and guest cottage with garages. Call or email for more
details Paula Lounsbury, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate 305-970-9530, FlaLivingNaturally@gmail.comwww.FloridaLivingNaturally.com

Specify your Tillandsia and/or Sabal Minor delivery preference by contacting FNPS at info@fnps.org or 321-271-
6702.
For each publication, indicate email or postal mail. You may also specify Palmetto delivery preference to be enacted at a future date (email delivery of the Palmetto is not currently available).